Tho material, why not immortal?

Google

This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on Hbrary shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project

to make the world's books discoverable online.

It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject

to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books

are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.

Marks, notations and other maiginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the

publisher to a library and finally to you.

Usage guidelines

Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we liave taken steps to
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying.
We also ask that you:

+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for
personal, non-commercial purposes.

+ Refrain fivm automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help.

+ Maintain attributionTht GoogXt "watermark" you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.

+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liabili^ can be quite severe.

About Google Book Search

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web

at |http : //books . google . com/|

I

PRBSKNTED BV
THE AUTHOR

OUlaJMuti

!

^^.^^VAAVC2y

THO MATERIAL, WHY
NOT IMMORTAL?

BY

OBERLIN SMITH

BOSTON
RICHARD G. BADGER

THE GORHAM PRESS

CoPTUGRT, z9az, BT Obbrlin Smith

All Rights Reserved

Made in the United States of America

The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A.

I

TO THE MEMORY OF MY DEARLY BELOVED WIFE,

AND TO HER HOPE AND TO MY HOPE

OF OUR MEETING IN THE GREAT

UNKNOWABLE BEYOND

. ■■■- !^ ^«^ - K» ^ m,\jm.-Jt^m.%. ^ . .' \ .^^_i^sB_^..

A FOREWORD

In the Andover Review for September,
1887, was published an article of mine entitled
*'If Material, Why Mortal?" At various times
since then I have given numerous reprints to
friends and have been frequently offered sug-
gestions that it be amplified and published in
book form. Among these was an eminent and
well-known Bishop who, like various other clerical
friends, could see nothing in it antagonistic to
the Christian religion.

In this little book I am following the sugges-
tions above named, and have thought it best to
publish the original article verbatim, making it
the first chapter of the present book. Certain
ideas which seemed somewhat prophetic have
proved to be truly such, as e.g., certain improve-
ments in the phonograph which really make it an
instrument of precision, rather than merely a
'^horrible toy."

In the following chapters are offered various

5

v'vc»'-i.'» 'i^M v.** -I'.y l a^ fra *■ • '^ »

^ m.--^ ^ . -^ . .90 « *% _M. -A t^_ .Bk

6 A Foreword

analogies based upon discoveries in science made

since the first article was written. Attention is

also called to a few of the other books upon

Inunortality which have appeared in recent years,

but no attempt is made at a complete list of such

literature.

It is to be hoped that no readers of this little

guesswork essay will regard the ideas suggested

as attempted proof of the truth of any new

theories. They can not be convincing because

they are not based upon accepted certainties ; they

are simply speculations as to what may possibly

be, their probability being strengthened where

feasible by analogies in the shape of numerous

facts in the domain of science with which we are

all more or less familiar.

Oberlin Smith.
Bridgeton, New Jersey.

^ ih ., - ^ ^^ -li^lfc ^'1 I >■> iiiii if— qS j|»i** ^ «4»

( #

I

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGX

I Immortal Hopes ii

II Thirty-Threb Years Later / . . . . 34

III Some Conclusions 57

— «,-.^:*T-_fcir ..-

.^ ._»#.«KL.

THO MATERIAL, WHY NOT
IMMORTAL?

^ ^ t I

THO MATERIAL, WHY NOT

IMMORTAL?

CHAPTER I

IMMORTAL HOPES

"Papa, papa, why did he die?" sobbingly cried
my little girl as she buried her pet squirrel. And
this is but the questioning wail that has rung
down through the ages, from countless thousands
of older tongues and sadder hearts than hers —
why did he die? — ^yet no response has come.

That other question, "Shall he live again?"
the anxious, hopeful, fearful riddle at which
humanity is ever guessing, seems solved to many
an earnest soul who, by faith alone, cries "Yes I"
To many other just as truth-seeking minds the
yes is but a wish, a prayer, a hope. To yet an-
other class of minds the answer can be but "no," —
brings it them the resignation of despair, or wel-
come they their nirvana as a pleasant sleep.

II

12 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal?

Taking the human race as a whole, it has, and
probably always has had, a most earnest desire
to be immortal. It has often been said that this
desire is in itself one of the strongest proofs of
its own fulfillment. However cogent this evidence
may be, it can but be regarded as circumstantial.
A stronger proof perhaps would be the unlikeli-
hood of such seeming cruelty on the part of a
Creator as would be shown by the creation of
a mortal race, many of whose members are cut
off almost ere they enter conscious life, and many
others of which live on but to one unending round
of toil and misery and pain. This, too, is only
circumstantial evidence, — and the great riddle
goes on, challenging every new truth seeker to
attack it, but repulsing all alike.

The question does not seriously trouble the
unthinking herd. They believe in their heavens
and their purgatories, their hells and their
nirvanas, just as they happen to be born believing,
and just as they happen to be taught to believe
after they are born. Those men and women who
think for themselves, however, may perhaps be
fitly classed as either spiritists, agnostics, or ma-

Immortal Hopes 13

terialists — in other words, as immortalists, don't-
know-anything-ists, or mortalists. The first know
all (or a good deal) about spirit; the second are
serenely content to wait till they find out some-
thing ; the third know that there is no spirit. The
first class are presumably the happiest. They
need no pity, and are only to be congratulated
upon having been born with the kind of mind
which can unquestionably feel the certainty of a
happy immortality. Such people can hardly claim
superior virtue for believing, as they were all
created with a capacity to believe ; nor should they
condemn those with whom such faith is an utter
impossibility, — whose minds are so constructed
that they cannot know a thing unless it is demon-
strated with the certainty of a proposition in
geometry. The third class mentioned (to speak
next of them) are certainly not to be felicitated
upon a belief which condemns them to utter' anni-
hilation at any instant that a blind chance may
decree to be the fitting one. They are, on the
other hand, hardly to be pitied, for they seem as
happy in their creed as do the immortals in theirs.
Though frequently men of science, they fail to

14 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal f

be scientific, by jumping at conclusions which are
but assumptions; and acquire a superior knowl-
edge only by knowing too much.

To try to show that these materialists are but
part-way scientists, who stop satisfied with such
facts as agree with their own preconceived creeds
and fail to recognize certain glorious possibilities
which other facts may point the way to, is the ob-
ject of this article. It may here be said that it
is not the wish of the writer to ventilate any
theological views which he may hold; nor does
he intend to promulgate any positive theory re-
garding the nature of the spiritual life. He de-
sires merely to point out certain scientific possi-
bilities which to some minds may seem probabili-
ties, and the consideration of which may be of
comfort to some earnest, honest souls who can
by no possible means accept any of the old faiths,
yet who have left to them humanity's common
yearning for a life to come. These men and
women belong to the second class above men-
tioned, the great ^nd growing army of honest
doubters. They wish to believe only what is true,
but the stem facts (such of them as are facts) of
modern science have unsettled many of their in-

Immortal Hopes 15

herited beliefs, and have so far failed to provide
acceptable substitutes. For these people only is
suitable such consolation as may be derived from a
somewhat spiritualized view of some phases of
nature. This consolation the spiritists do not need
and the materialists do not want. It may further
be said, in explanation of what is to follow, that
all reference to scriptural teachings has been pur-
posely omitted, and an attempt has been made to
view the subject from the standpoint of the en^-
neer and the physidst only.

Taking such a view, and reasoning from ob-
served facts and phenomena, many men of a
scientific cast of mind feel that they can but admit
the truth of the proposition: (a) It is possible
that there exists nothing but matter and motion.
Such believers are possible materialists, and
among them are many profound and conscientious
thinkers. Those who go further, and say that
there certainly exists nothing but matter and
motion, are positively materialists, and are usu-
ally supposed to hold the belief that there can be
no immortality, — that spirit is non-existent.

These materialists are, in their way, just as
narrow-minded and unscientific as are some of the

i

i
I

i

l\

1 6 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal?

extremists whom they condemn among theolo-
gians. They seem incapable of taking a broad
view of Nature, and judge her ways through the
medium of their own little vision, forgetting that
some of the wondrous processes hourly going on
around them in organic life, or perhaps in the
domains of chemistry or electricity merely, are
as marvelous, and as difficult to understand, as
would be the truth of the following proposition :
(b) Granted, that all things are but matter and
motion, it is possible for man^s existence to con-
tinue after death as an immortal spirit.

Assuming, then, the truth of proposition, (a)
(without which assumption further argument
would be unnecessary), let us seek for evidence in
support of proposition (b), as the consolation de-
sired in case the possibility implied in (a) should
turn out to be a certainty. Some of this evidence
it is hoped that the earnest student of nature may
find in what follows, — it being remembered that
for the sake of the argument do we assume the
truth of the vital claim of materialism, — ^the ex-
istence of naught but matter and motion.

The objection offered by many materialists to
any such possibility as the one under considera-

Immortal Hopes 17

tion; that the visible matter of which the brain
and nerves (wherein, by common consent, we all
localize the mind) is composed is evidently dis-
integrated after death, and enters into new chemi-
cal forms, — or perhaps even into the brains of
other individuals. The answer to this is, in the
first place, that (c) the matter which we see in
the dead brain may not be all of the matter which
belonged to the matter-motion of the mind for-
merly seated therein, and may be its non-essential
part only. In the second place, (d) the motion
part of mind may, after the brain is dead, be
acting partly or wholly upon other matter, in other
forms, and yet retain its individuality. The truth
of these two propositions might have hardly been
conceivable a century lago, but the. marvelous
scientific discoveries of a few decades past have
furnished numerous analogies which act as hints
to further thought, and help to enlarge our con-
ceptive powers, so to speak, in a remarkable
degree. A few of these hints are, somewhat dis-
connectedly, given in the succeeding paragraphs.
We know but little of the relation of mind to
brain, and that little consists chiefly of the fact
that the gray matter, forming the outer, con-

1 8 Tho Material, Why Not Immortalf

voluted part of the organ, receives and in some
way stores up or records the sensations which are
telegraphed to it, as it were, by the nerves and
by the filaments of white substance which form
the interior of the brain. Whether this recording
is done by permanently changing the shape of
certain particles of the matter, as in the tin-foil
of the phonograph; or whether a set of special
permanent motions are established which can at
any time be "thrown into gear" again, so to speak,
with the nerve fibres, to repeat the sensation; or
whether there are a set of chemical changes made,
as upon the paper ribbon of the Bain telegraph,
or the plate of the photograph ; or what else may
happen, we do not know. We do know that a
great many of the sensations experienced through
life are stored up, and there is a strong probability
that all of them are, because great numbers may
be reproduced, and we cannot say of any particu-
lar one that it will not be recalled by a proper
association of ideas. This process constitutes
education and memory, and is the means of all
knowledge and consciousness. A crude illustra-
tion of this action is found in the working of the
phonograph, where the sound-waves in infinite

Immortal Hopes 19

variety of combination, are transmitted by the
air to the instrument, there recorded permanently
upon tin-foil and afterwards reproduced as often
as desired and retransmitted upon air-waves to
where they are wanted by some listening ear. A
more striking analogy would be found by taking
that to-be-invented instrument of the future, a
transmitting phonograph or recording-telephone,
or **telephonograph," as it might, perhaps, better
be called. The gray matter of the brain would
here be represented by the tin-foil (or the enor-
mously better recording material that will prob-
ably be substituted for it, when the phonograph
shall cease to be but a horrible toy and shall
develop into a form more worthy of one of the
greatest and most original inventions of this or
any other century), while the connecting nerve
filaments would be represented by the telephonic
wires to and from the distant points communicated
with. The electric current would, of course,
represent the "nervous-fluid," whatever that
may be.

Carrying on the analogy of the phonography
an illustration may be made of the idea expressed
in proposition (c), by supposing a sheet of thick

20 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal?

paper to be used instead of tin-foil whereon to
emboss the minute indentations representing the
sound vibrations. Suppose this paper to be care-
fully burned so as to leave a film of ash, such as we
have all seen in the fireplace after burning a piece
of newspaper, the printed words thereon still be-
ing plainly lepble. This film would have upon
it the original phonographic record, and yet it
would not be the visible material on which this
record was embossed. It would be but a part,
and a very small part, of that material, and, ap-
parently, the most delicate and ethereal portion, —
though, of course, chemically speaking, really the
most earthy. It would be easy to imagine a sheet
of material thus embossed, of such a nature that
the outer part, constituting the principal bulk,
would fall off in visible dead ashes, whilst the film
containing the record would be so thin and light
as to float almost invisibly away upon a breath of
air. And here the suggestive thought comes in
that its visibility or invisibility would depend,
after all, upon the kind of eyes that looked for it,
— and in how dim a light they gazed, for we mor-
tals see some things but as ^ ^through a glass, dark-
ly," the Scriptures tell us. We have in the above

Immortal Hopes 21

illustration a rough analogy with the idea ex-
pressed in proposition (c) of the actual preserva-
tion of a portion, perhaps almost infinitely small,
of the material of the brain, — enough, however,
to contain the mysterious record which we call
consciousness, and memory, and knowledge.
Who can say that this is absolutely impossible, in
the light of what we already know about the va-
rious states of matter, and more especially in the
darkness of what we don't know?

Our forefathers knew of the solid state of some
things and the liquid state of others ; and presently
they found that air and other gases were things.
Then came the discovery that one state might
sometimes be changed into one or perhaps two of
the other states, — that wax would melt, and that
water would freeze or boil. Now we know with
reasonable certainty that any substance may exist
in any one of the three states; and the brilliant
experiments of Professor Crookes and others, in
radiometry, are giving us glimpses into the bor-
der-land of a possible fourth state of matter.
What other states there still may be beyond, we
as yet have no conception. Neither can we con-
ceive of the characteristics peculiar to these pos-

22 Tho Material, Why Not Immortalf

sible undiscovered states, and although we might
suppose a series of increasingly ethereal condi-
tions to be less and less capable of retaining any
kind of permanent impressions, or cycles of
specialized motions (just as is a gas less capable
than a liquid or a liquid than a solid), yet we
cannot feel sure. This is especially so in a time
when the hypothetical luminiferous ether itself is
thought by some eminent philosophers to be only
matter in a condition wholly different from any-
thing with which our senses are familiar, and in
some respects even more like a solid than a gas,
although lying at the outer boundaries of im-
ponderability and tenuity. Such remarkable
qualities as are attributed to it by Sir William
Thomson, in his vortex-atom theory, where it is
supposed to be a sort of jelly-like solid, incom-
pressible and perfectly f rictionless, are suggestive,
if nothing more. While still considering proposi-
tion (c) it may be well to answer a possible criti-
cism to the effect that an exceedingly minute por-
tion of matter could hardly contain all that is
stored up in a human mind, by asking how it is that
the nucleus of a certain microscopic germ may
hold within itself all that by heredity can come to

Immortal Hopes 23

an individual, in mind and body, — ^special talents,
capacities for good and evil, a hundred peculiari-
ties of temperament and face and voice. And,
too, this same germ enshrouds all that goes to
make the difference between a Newton or a Shake-
speare, and the snake or toad which may be the
product of some certain other like appearing
germ.

Should there, however, be no truth in the above
hypothesis (c) we have perhaps more probability
in proposition (d) , wherein the motion part of the
brain-action is supposed to continue with new
matter to act upon. This does not seem so absurd
when we consider its analogy with a phonograph
record-sheet, which should be made of a substance
that would petrify so that all its original con-
stituent matter would disappear and be replaced
by new and more permanent material, while its
shape would remain unchanged in every detail.
Another illustration of this idea may be found in
the well-known fact of the transposition of matter
in living organism, even our own bodies, and the
total substitution of new material every few
months without any change of form. This trans-
position takes place slowly in the cases known to

24 Tho Material, Why Not Immortalf

us, where solids and liquids are concerned, but
we know of no reason why it should not occur
very rapidly, at the death of the brain with some
higher form of matter as its subject.

The above illustrations are adapted more par-
ticularly to the idea of the brain records being
a matter of shape, which somehow (perhaps in a
manner analogous to the phonographic action)
reproduces at the proper time the necessary
motion to be sent into the nerve-fibres. The whole
thing may be easier of conception, however, if we
regard it all as a question of continuous special
motions, and the material substance involved as
merely a medium of the motion. A third idea
was mentioned (see page i6) in connection with
brain records, namely: chemical action. This it
is hardly worth while to consider separately, in
these days when even chemical action seems as if it
might be but a question of dynamics; and when we
are beginning to call upon atoms and molecules
(whatever such may be) to wheel into line under
the command of the mechanical engineer.

Whether, then, this assumed continuity of in-
dividual brain-action goes on with new matter as
a medium, or whether it be a part of the old, does

Immortal Hopes 25

not signify. The probabilities would seem to be
in favor of its being an ever-changing one, just
as is the substance of our earthly bodies. In any
case we are met with the grand and pregnant
possibility that the universe teems with spirit-life
which is but the logical continuance in a higher
state of that which was born and nurtured here
in a lower; that finer and more delicate forms of
matter are as capable of caring for and localizing
the wondrous set of motions called a "mind," as
are the few ounces of brain-cells that a chemist
may reduce in an hour to common earths and
gases; that such a development from little begin-
nings to great endings is a human soul, with its
glorious capabilities and its infinite aspirations,
can find as fit a home in a higher state of matter
as in its lowly earth-born domicile, whose crude
and faulty construction protects not its divinely
formed inmate from being snuffed out like a flame
at the touch of disease or accident.

In accordance with the law of recompenses
which seems to prevail largely throughout nature,
the very enlightenment of the present age, which
has begun to cast doubt upon and weaken the
steadfastness of many comforting old beliefs, has

26 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal?

given us some hints toward a knowledge of the
luminiferous ether, and has shown us that the
universe must be full of media, which are capable
of maintaining and transmitting forms of energy
transcendant in their delicacy or sublime in their
immensity.

If, as will be explained more at length in suc-
ceeding pages, certain of these media can easily
keep records of all the disturbances in their sub-
stances which we term sights and sounds, each
perfectly individualized though interpenetrating
to others, nothing too unimportant for notice,
though it be but "a sparrow's fall," does it not
seem, by an ordinary process of analogical reason-
ing, to be more than possible — even probable —
that the sets of movements which constitute the
phenomena of mind are also taken care of? Why
should these, the most important of all, and the
ones upon which depends the value of all the rest,
be neglected? I say the value of all the rest, be-
cause we can conceive of no value or purpose in
the creation and continuance of ^ the universe
without intelligence to observe, appreciate and
enjoy. And surely the grandeur of creation would
be sadly wasted on us (and on such as we in other

Immortal Hopes 27

worlds ) were our existence limited to the stunted,
uncertain and abbreviated condition which we
call mortality.

That matter is capable of an infinite variety of
motions, its particles acting and reacting upon one
another throughout the universe, seems to be an
accepted fact. Just as the ripples flow outward
from the pebble thrown into the sea, to a distance
we cannot estimate, and perhaps "go on forever,"
even so flow on the sound-waves from every tone
of nature's organ, — and who shall say when and
where they absolutely cease ? And if our hollow
ball of air should fail them, by proving to have a
definite outer limit, and the outlying ether should
take them up, it would surely be no more strange
than the fact that such waves can be transferred to
the piece of twine in a "lover's telephone." In-
deed, to use the beautiful words of Professor
Jevons, "our whole atmosphere" (and the firma-
ment beyond, I would add) "may be one vast
library, on whose pages are forever written all
that man has ever said or even whispered. There,
in their mutable but unerring characters, mixed
with the earliest as well as the latest sighs of mor-
tality, stand forever recorded vows unredeemed.

28 Tho Material, Why Not Immortalf

promises unfulfilled, perpetuating in the united
movements of each particle the testimony of man's
changeful will." An analogous fancy in regard
to light-rays may, I think, be found somewhere in
Dr. Dick's works, though I do not remember in
which, or even if it be original with him. He
speaks of the probability of all events which have
ever occurred upon the earth being now actually
visible at some place in the universe — ^just where,
depending of course upon when the event hap-
pened, and upon how fast have travelled the
particular set of light-waves which once made it
visible here. The only conditions, therefore,
which are necessary for the grand panorama of
the world's history to be shown to a sentient
being, while it is actually happening, is that he
shall have a sufficiently delicate eyesight, and
shall be able to fly through space somewhat faster
than does light, that he may catch up, so to speak,
with any event that he desires to witness. A
speculation of similar character may, if I remem-
ber rightly, be found in one of General Mitchell's
astronomical lectures. That these startling fan-
cies may be sober facts ; that all space may be one
great phonograph and one great photograph,

t

t

Immortal Hopes 29

wherein has been and shall be forever recorded
the history of the universe, is no more inherently
unbelievable to the student of science than are a
thousand phenomena which are daily going on
before his eyes.

If, then, when Newton's apple fell, the earth
rose to meet it, just its own share of the distance
and every moon and star responded to the dis-
turbance; if, as would seem to be the case, each
atom in the universe is acting upon or influencing
in some way every other atom, "by sound-waves,
or heat-waves, or light-waves (visible or actinic),
by waves of electricity, by magnetism, by gravita-
tion, by a hundred other mysterious forms of
energy about which we have not yet learned; if
this influence of matter upon matter is, in kind,
independent of its quantity, however minute, and
its distance apart, however vast ; if this action has
gone and can go on through all time, however
infinitely long; if it is all-permeating and can go
on over and through other trains of action, as
ripple rises over billow, as in multiplex telegraphy
message crosses over message, each maintaining
its individuality intact; if, furthermore, all these
actions can be infinitely vast or infinitely delicate

30 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal?

— then why should not the wondrous and compli-
cated train of motions which we suppose to consti-
tute a human mind, create upon some form of
matter, within or around the brain which is their
mortal seat, an influence as subtle or subtler than
themselves? And why should not this new train
of action have, in its turn, a power to grow and
develop to infinity^ free from the trammels of its
earth-born parent? And why should not this
entity be called an immortal spirit?

If the proposition that matter can be spirit, and
spirit is but matter, were more than an hypothesis,
and if the time had yet come for its demonstration,
it is difficult to see why the theologian should be
stricken with horror thereat. The conventional
theologian undoubtedly would be so stricken, just
as he was when Galileo^s mighty arm revolved the
earth (against his mandate) and sent him whirl-
ing with it, out from his ancient matrix, until he
struck the rocks of modem Geology ( fossil meet-
ing fossils) when the new and greater horror
overpowered the lesser till it in turn dwindled to
a rudiment in its struggle for existence with the
greatest horror of alU Evolution. And yet, no
more than in the proved facts of Astronomy and

Immortal Hopes 31

Geology, or the probabilities of the Development
theory, is there aught in the possibilities of what
we may term Spiritual-Materialism to conflict
with the great truths of morality and religion;
with a pure life and the Christian's hopeful death;
with the existence of a happy Heaven and the
ever-presence of a loving God.

If we search for the difference between our
theologians' traditional spirit-spirit and our hypo-
thetical matter-spirit, we shall find it to be in name
only, as far as character and attributes are con-
cerned; but the latter has the merit of being
conceivable and capable of being reasoned about,
while his is but an abstraction — at least it seems
so to the class of minds for whose edification
these pages are prepared. These earnest souls
are living interrogation-points seeking always to
penetrate the Arcana of Nature and of Fate.
Perchance to them mostly, rather than to the
Spiritists on the one hand or the Materialists on
the other, must we look for the gradual evolution
of those facts which, all in good time, will make
so sure and easy the reconciliation between Re-
ligion and Science. These men are asking such
questions as those we have here discussed, and.

32 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal?

looking at the mighty enginery of their Creator
with a reverence impossible to the mere material-
ist, they would further ask : Why, in the light of
this truth-finding nineteenth century, should we
continue to degrade matter as but of '^earth,
earthy?" What but the action of motion upon
matter are all the sounds and sights that stir our
emotions and rouse our souls to highest pitch of
sorrow or joy? Does it not, indeed, almost deify
matter to us to know that by certain purely me-
chanical peculiarities of its arrangement and
movement we have the sunlight or the shade ; the
painted glories of the evening sky or the darkness
of a midnight storm; the smile of love or scowl of
hate; pictured faces of dear ones in the photo-
graph, or their voices over wires from far away;
the roar of thunder or the cricket's chirp; the
din of battle, with its shrieks of pain, or the
heaven-born cadences of a Nilsson or a Malibran?
And do we not know that these things, and all the
other wondrous work going on among the ele-
ments, in the domains of physics and chemistry,
or crystallography, or plant-life and sentient or-
ganic life, in the realms of astronomic space,
where a great world may be ages in whirling about

Immortal Hopes 33

its orbit, or where the ether atoms may propel
radiant energy by traversing their little paths
eight hundred trillions of times in a single second,
are only the changes that the chimes of God are
ringing upon that which we call matter? Being
certain, furthermore, that matter is the vehicle
and agent of all our consciousness, and that only
through it as a tool do we feel or know or act
of think; that here in our earthly life it is the
medium of hope and joy, of conscience and of
love; that its capabilities are so vast and yet so
delicate; — shall we, can we, positively say that
the matter which has so well served us here shall
fail us when **the silver cord be loosed, or the
golden bowl be broken," — when the heart shall
cease to beat and the busy brain to throb ? Know-
ing all the brilliant, but as yet dimly revealed pos-
sibilities which we can even now catch glimpses of
as we stand on the border-land of science, can we
do less than seek consolation for those whose
faith reaches but to the conceivable, with the
ever-recurring question, and the answer attempted
in these pages. If material, why mortal?

CHAPTER TWO

THIRTY-THREE YEARS LATER

Soon after writing Chapter One, but before it
was published, I happened to see for the first
time a copy of that rather remarkable book
"The Unseen Universe" issued some eight or
ten years earlier, and better known in England
than America. Its gifted authors, P. G. Tait
and Balfour Stuart, take the same general view
that we are herein considering regarding the
potency of matter to include spirit, but their
treatment of the subject is different enou^ not
to tempt me to cry out, with Sydney Smith, against
"those confounded ancients who were always
stealing our ideas." The general conception of
alL this is probably nothing new, as doubtless
many thinkers have also speculated upon the
influence of brain-action, upon lifeless matter
never being wholly lost.

The authors in question, however, have gone
more deeply into the subject, although their

34

Thirty-Three Years Later 35

startling and ingenious hypothesis of spirit-life
existing in a dual universe, which is, in a sense,
the complement of this, and in which a train of
motions are set up (through the ethereal medium
between) by the movements taking place here,
making our spirits contemporary duplicates of
our minds, as it were, may perhaps not be as
plausible as the idea expressed in these pages of
continuity of existence merely — the spirit succeed-
ing the mind after the death of the body. Neither
does their view of the probable final extinction of
the visible universe appear as tenable as one
which would allow for an infinite number of new
sidereal systems to grow and disappear, during
and throughout an infinity of time and space.

I am not familiar with much of the recent lit-
erature upon this subject but have looked over a
number of the little volumes upon immortality
published in Boston under the general title of the
"IngersoU Lectures." It is hardly worth while
to consider them here in an analytical way, as
there seems but little in them in harmony with the
idea of a spirit emanating from earthy matter.
I find a few of them denying any existence of a
future life. Some of these writers believe in the

• . .- .. '.L

36 Tho Material, Why Not Immortalf

immortality of the Race, and the existence of a
universal rather than an individual consciousness.
Most of them, however, are glowing with the
hope and the firm belief in an individual eternal
future. None of them attempt to show how such
a future could be attained with the embodiment
of only matter and motion.

During this last third of a century, so far as
I am aware, nothing new has been added to the
world's knowledge in actual proof of Immortality,
altho there have been written interesting specu-
lations which are but speculative — even if based
upon positive facts. In the way of suggestive
analogies, however, several new and remarkable
discoveries in the realm of physics have been
given to the world.

Among these is the development of radium,
that curious element which seems not only to
have stored in itself an enormous amount of
energy but to be capable of giving this forth in a
remarkable way by actually sending out its par-
ticles (said to be some billions per second) with-
out much apparent exhaustion of its substance, and
this at enormous and unthought of velocities,
ranging from 10,000 to 100,000 miles per second.

Thirty-Three Years Later 37

Such action is suggestive of the use of small
quantities of matter in an unexpected way.

Another remarkable development is the practice
of wireless telegraphy, wherein the matter con-
stituting the sending and receiving instruments,
together with the matter or non-matter which
some of us term the ether of space, is subjected
to a variety of motions in the form of vibrations
which may include thoughts of all kinds as well
as speech in any language for expressing them.
And these are propagated thru thousands of miles
of space in a few moments of time.

Still more remarkable is the success of wireless
telephony, where words or any other sounds are
transmitted between the earth and flying-ma-
chines, in either direction, thru miles of space,
regardless we assume of the presence of the
atmosphere therein.

The phonograph in its various forms, referred
to in the previous chapter as but a "toy," has
become one of the wonders of the world — with its
power to store up any kind of sound whatsoever,
for an indefinite time, and in such a way that it
can be duplicated from the original matrix to any
extent desired. Furthermore, all of these dupli-

.k.*tedBaiBMiriMaak.jrtBW-. j

38 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal?

cate copies of such sound-records may be stored so
as to perfectly reproduce at any future time all
of the sounds recorded, always exactly alike and
available one-thousand or ten-thousand years
hence, as well as now. Here is a case of a mere
machine, and a very simple one, which has, within
certain limits, an infinitely better and more ac-
curate memory, so to speak, than has the keenest
human brain.

Another wonder of the world, altho still in its
infancy, is the making of moving pictures. The
beautiful, yet simple, machinery employed in this
art does for vision what the phonograph does for
hearing. By its use all and any kind of motion
occurring in animate and inanimate objects is
shown with almost life-like accuracy and, as with
the phonograph, a duplication to any amount of
the original picture can be obtained. Here, too,
we can get repetition to any amount, at present
or at future times as the centuries pass. This art
altho now somewhat crude will doubtless be
greatly improved, so that all of the most delicate
shades and colors in nature will be reproduced —
instead of the pictures being made in the black-
and-white only, as now.

->*• *.

Thirty-Three Years Later 39

Furthermore, it probably will be possible in
the future to synchronize the work of this ma-
chine with the phonograph so that , not only
motions, but sounds accompanying them, will
together be produced, thus giving a complete re-
production of co-related sights and sounds, hap-
pening in the wilds of nature or by humanity in
all of its phases, together with the action of other
living creatures. An incidental feature with both
of the instruments in question is the advantage of
being able to alter the speed at will, thus produc-
ing faster or slower action in moving things, and
sounds of higher or lower pitch, than evolved
originally.

Various other machines, having almost super-
human qualities in their own particular line of
effort, are of the type represented by the Jacquard
Loom; the automatic player used on pianos and
organs; the monotype machine for casting and
setting up type in printing offices, etc., etc. All of
these machines obediently perform their work,
and every time exactly alike, in obedience to an
act of some human brain which, thru its nerves
and finger muscles, has caused certain rows of
holes, in specified positions, to be punched in rolls

40 Tho Material, Why Not Immortalf

of paper or sheets of cardboard. These holes
afterwards govern the motions of warp-threads
in weaving some beautiful and artistic fabric; or
so control blasts of air as to actuate at the proper
times the valves of an organ or the hammers of a
piano ; or, in the type-machine, the position of the
various moulds to be filled with molten metal — all
obeying the will of the master brain and duplicat-
ing its thought as desired.

In the case of all the machines mentioned, from
the phonograph down, we have an analogy of
human memory. A certain thing is learned and,
in the case of memory, can be repeated more or
less perfectly, altho subject to eclipses and lapses,
an indefinite number of times. With the machines
in question, this memory is perfect and we are
sure that whatever has happened can happen
again at will, exactly the same way as originally.

It is worthy of remark that all of these
mechanisms are versatile, and usually not limited
to any one act of memory. The phonograph can
handle innumerable record-plates or cylinders;
the picture-machine an indefinite number of films;
and the other less important machines can per-
form whatever is given them if supplied with the

■ • » »• ■"^^^j*!

^» • ^m «M J

Thirty-Three Years Later 41

rolls of paper or cards pertaining to each indi-
vidual performance.

As a striking analogy between human memory
and the first named of these important machines,
let us imagine a very small phonograph, which we
engineers know would be entirely possible to
produce, of the size say of an ordinary watch.
Such a machine could be made which would utter
a hundred or two words and would talk for
a minute or two, loud enough to be understood
by good ears. It could be placed in a small
pigeon-hole say two inches square by one inch
high and, furthermore, it might embody a little
electric motor so that it could be stopped and
started at will by a current in its wire connections.

Further, if a million of these instruments were
placed in rows of racks or cases grouped as closely
together as possible in a room which would con-
tain them, say about fourteen feet square by
twelve feet high, each of these little machines
would have a disk on which would be briefly re-
corded some event as it occurred — or perhaps
some argument upon any desired subject. To
these suitable conducting wires would be so
grouped that certain two or more of them would

42 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal?

contain associated ideas ; that is to say, when one
had said its say, its stopping would throw into
action its mate nearby, or in some other part of
the room. Thus the history of one event would
be suggesting another one and so on, there being
perhaps many strange combinations.

The operator of all of this mechanism could,
by touching a button, start any one of these little
phonographs and it might start others — ^by wire-
connection, or perhaps by sympathetically tuned
sound-waves, or etfher-waves. Another time some
different touch would produce audibly a variety
of other information, and so forth. In general,
an apparatus of this kind would be a great
memory machine with a record of a million events
ready at hand, any one of which might appear
and might cause others to appear. This whole
affair may perhaps form a suggestive analogy of
what we can imagine might take place, and per-
haps does take place, in a living brain.

An important fact in connection with this idea
is that altho we have imagined a small room full
of apparatus the same result with some analogous
mechanism might all be contained in a tiny space
of microscopic size, when using molecules, atoms

Thirty-Three Years Later 43

and electrons as the component parts of the ma-
chinery, instead of the wheels, pivots and springs
measured by visible distances, counted on one's
pocket rule.

Herein, it seems to me, lies the possibility and
the hope that almost any desired effect of a
psychological kind can be obtained in the most
minute yet conceivable spaces because of the ex-
ceeding smallness of the ultimate particles of
matter and of the enormous speeds capable of
attainment by these tiny entities.

No anatomists or psychologists, nor the rest
of us, have ever been able to give us an acceptable
idea as to the modus operandi of the brain in
storing up the impressions received in the past by
one or more of the five senses, and yet we know
that within any adult brain there must be millions
of such impressions stored, any one of which may
happen to be recalled by the function that we call
memory; usually perhaps by some associated
recollection. We never know which one of these
millions may be called forth at any given time,
but as we cannot know which ones may happen to
be totally forgotten we must assume that they are
all there.

44 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal?

If, as seems probable, these items of stored up
knowledge are located, respectively, in certain
parts of the brain and consist of certain motions
and positions of the molecules and smaller units,
constituting the brain cells involved, then we won-
der how there can possibly be room for all the
millions of these little storage places with their
contents classified as might be letters in the pigeon-
holes of a post office or in the card-indexes of a
big library. The only plausible answer to this
question may perhaps be conceived when we con-
sider the minute size of these molecules, each
made up of one or many atoms, which according
to the estimates of Sir Ernest Rutherford have
room to move about in spaces numbering about
four sextillions (4 coo 000 000 000 000 000 000)
to the cubic inch of brain matter. Furthermore,
each of these little atoms is supposed to contain
or be composed of numerous "electrons," now
thou^t to be the ultimate "units'^ of matter.
When we consider these figures, altho we our-
selves may not possess pocket-rules or calipers
for measuring the diameters of the atoms, we can
easily imagine that there is room in a brain for
very many athletic performances by such tiny

Thirty 'Three Years Later 45

particles. It must be remembered that if their
positions in relation to each other govern the
effect produced, a slight change in the position of
one or more in a group may produce entirely dif-
ferent results, just as would the transposition of
a very few notes in an elaborate symphony.

If we take a general view of Nature, with
her wonderful variety of organic life and its
constant reproduction, and of the marvels of
crystallography in the realm of inorganic matter,
positively knowing of no things but matter and
motion, we can but conclude that all of the living
phenomena known to us must be due to the
various groupings and the relative motions of
the cells in the organic being and of the molecules
within these cells and of the atoms within the
molecules and of the electrons within the atoms.
Fortunately for our logic, these particles of mat-
ter are so almost infinitely small that there is
ample room for very many combinations. Con-
sidering the laws of permutation we get by change
ing the relative positions of the particles as well
as the amplitude and the velocity of their motions,
a number of effects produced which to our finite

46 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal?

minds are inconceivable. These effects, seen in
the creation of the innumerable living creatures
upon this earth, are sufficiently wonderful, but
more so when we consider all the marvels of re-
production and how the tiny seed or egg will only
produce a creature of its own kind without per-
ceptible variation — unless by a long term of
changing environment. Furthermore, we know
that each of its descendants has the same power
and thus the whole plan of nature grows more
and more bewildering. How indeed are we to
realize the ancestral power of the germ of a sea-
urchin — itself an organism composed of very
many atoms, and yet so small that there is space
for a hundred-million of them or so in a cubic-
inch? Furthermore, how curious is the fact that
another tiny germ of a certain lowly weed is no
smaller than an apparently similar one which pro-
duces an enormous tree growing to thousands of
years old I

In view of the facts regarding matter that have
already been ascertained by the physicists and
chemists, we can but regard any portion of it as
an intricate machine with its particles always in
motion, acting and re-acting upon each other. The

Thirty-Three Years Later 47

wonderful changes made in the action of these
particles by different relative groupings of the
different sorts of molecules is well known in
chemistry, which indeed we may nowadays con-
sider to really belong in the realm of mechanics.
It is difficult to see why some changing of group-
ing or proportion of certain particles instantly
converts a harmless gas or liquid or solid from a
nourishing food into a terrible explosive.

Altho we cannot, and probably never shall, see
the mechanism of the presumable interlocking of
molecules in different ways, we may perhaps con-
sider certain analogies which suggest some pos-
sibilities of molecular mechanics. If, for instance,
all of the numerous parts of an elaborately com-
plicated repeating-watch were disassembled and
then again put together as they belong, it would
go on indefinitely with its usual motions. If, how-
ever, some one, or a few, wheels that happened
to fit in each other's bearings were transposed, a
totally different and chaotic result will be pro-
duced. The action of this, watch comes thru a
train of all the important members, from the
main-spring down to the second-hand. The final
motions are correct because so many teeth of a

48 Tho Material, Why Not Immortalf

driving cog-wheel will engage so many teeth of a
driven one. If, however, some wrong number of
teeth should by transposition occur in any wheel
the relative motions would be entirely different.
Many other analogies of this kind could be shown
in the realm of mechanics, whether the component
parts be large or small.

We cannot see, in mechanical action or brain
action, how one set of atoms grouped into a cer-
tain form of molecule can interlock it, or a group
of them, with some other molecule, or groups of
them, in various ways and produce the marvel-
ously different effects that ensue. We can hardly
conceive of these small particles having projec-
tions like wheel-teeth which engage as do the
teeth in watch-wheels ; but we do know that there
is some action there — and we expect it to remain
a mystery.

Even if we could comprehend the structure of
molecules and understand their mechanical actions
upon each other we have a greater mystery in the
modern study of electricity. We seem to be learn-
ing more about this marvelous agent, and we have
divided it up into so-called electrons without any
agreement among learned men as to whether each

Thirty-Three Years Later 49

electron is matter of some kind or merely some
form of wave motion of other matter. Further-
more, we cannot agree whether the stuff that
seemingly fills all space outside of ponderable
matter is matter itself in some other form, or
whether it still should be called "ether," as it has
been in recent years. There is some talk of its
beittff electricity. Others fancy that currents of
electricity may be holes in the ether; but so far
we are very much in a fog.

Referring to proposition (c) on page 17 of
Chapter One, it would not seem inconceivable for
enough of the tiny particles employed here in this
life as a part of the machinery of the human
brain to escape thru space and somewhere
form the nucleus of a renewed life ; just how and
where and when is beyond our cdnceptive powers.
This idea does not support the doctrine of the
"resurrection of the body," which by the absolute
laws of physics is hardly tenable — especially in
the case of a cannibal having eaten up a mission-
ary, or where a man has fallen into a crucible of
molten steel, at a temperature of three or four
thousand degrees, and is instantly resolved into

> J • •' <

> • • • »

• 1

50 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal?

a few elemental gases. Such latter event, it must
be admitted, tends rather to weaken this whole
proposition.

Referring to proposition (d), upon the same
page in Chapter One, we have a set of motions in
the brain matter which are supposed to act upon
some other matter somewhere in the space form-
ing the universe, and in such a way as to retain
their individuality. This seems to me more con-
ceivable than does proposition (c). We might
in this case, imagine a group of motion-waves
sailing out afar into space, as fast as they were
generated, to await the arrival of the soul from
which they emanated. This fancy would seem to
strengthen the idea of duality set forth in the
"Unseen Universe." Here, however, as else-
where thruout the marvelous planet on which we
live, we at present at least must blindly grope, and
merely hope for that we wish.

There are in this world two ideas of which our
finite minds can have no conception, and these are
the infinity of time and the infinity of space. If
time once began we immediately ask: "What
happened before that?" If it is ever to stop:
"What will happen after that?" And in the same

Thirty-Three Years Later 51

way regarding space, we ask if it goes out only
to some certain place, perhaps decillions of miles
from here: **What is beyond?"; if beyond that,
"Where does it stop?" — and there we are, blind
bats with no prospects of mortal vision.

There are in nature many things which the
most profound knowledge and study have not yet
enabled us to understand ; among these are gravi-
tation, magnetism and electricity — ^but further
searches into science may sometimes show us the
why and how of these marvelous, unknown phe-
nomena. We must, however, feel certain that
time and space are infinite, altho with our present
kind of brains, we have no idea even what the
term means, nor shall we probably ever know in
this world.

It is certain that, in accordance with various
facts discovered in the domains of Astronomy and
Geology, this world as a planet is not infinite
but that it had a definite beginning in some
gaseous, nebular form and that it probably will
end sometime in the same condition, perhaps being
absorbed into our sim, or other suns. Doubtless
jthe same may be said in regard to the other planets
and their satellites in our solar system and, if so»

52 Tho Material, Why Not Immortalf

we must by analogy attribute a like finite begin-
ning and end to other solar systems, the central
suns of which are what we call the fixed stars.

We call the whole group of these, which accord-
ing to recent researches in celestial photography
exist by thousands or millions, as suns of solar
systems about which we know something but very
little, "Our Universe." The questions then arise,
Are there many such universes, and how many,
and are they separated distinctly from each other?
And all this leads us to the conundrum, "How
large is space?" A tiny portion of this space is
represented by the distance from here to the near-
est star. Alpha Centauri, which is calculated to be
^bout 25 trillion (25000000000000) miles.

I am told by an astronomical friend that with
one of the latest improved telescopes and by the
aid of the modern improved methods of star-
photography as many as one-hundred-and-fifty
million stars may be perceived. Furthermore, a
larger instrument in the course of development
will probably double this amount. These stars are
too far off for us to measure their distance from
us by any system of parallax, but by the aid of
the spectroscope and other improved apparatus.

Thirty-Three Years Later 53

whole universes seem to have beea discovered as
independent units and of an approximately disk-
like form, rather than in spherical or irregular
groups. It is also supposed that our own Universe
is somewhat in the form of a flat disk. Such
shapes would suggest that various bodies com-
posing these universes were revolving about some
axis and also suggest a construction which we can
readily see, on a much smaller scale, in the rings
of Saturn.

The distance of some of the furthest stars that
have been discovered seems to be something over
one quintillion miles or, as expressed in figures,
thus: I 173942720000000000. Furthermore,
the light of some of these orbs, travelling at
186 000 miles per second, requires something like
200000 years to reach us; so that in gazing at
them we really are looking away back in history.

It is interesting to reflect that space is occupied
with these separate universes, rather than with
a conglomeration of stars scattered at random a
few billion miles apart. Thus we see the vast
apparently empty spaces between these marvelous
disk-like groups. All of this further suggests that
there is plenty of room out there for all kinds of

54 Tho Material, Why Not Immortalf

other existences than those that we know of, and
plenty of other places for their location.

The other conundrum: "How long is time?"
is of course unanswerable, but we do know that it
must take many millions of years for a planet to
develop from a nebulous condition to a solid earth
fitted for life; such life itself again takes long
ages to develop into ^anything like humanity. It
has recently been reported that fossil germs for
the production of some low order of life have
been discovered in rocks which were some 33
million years old. We can feel sure that some-
time our race, and all other life upon this planet,
must come to an end, probably within a few mil-
lion years.

A possible melancholy condition of a certain
English landscape is vividly portrayed in Mr.
WeUs' fanciful little book "The Time Machine,"
where the last living creatures, some sort of loath-
some lizards, slowly crawl upon a devastated
shore and with them all animal life has bidden
farewell to an earthly home. The Earth has
stopped and a small, dark-red Sun watches its
decease. Not looking so far ahead, the eminent

Thirty-Three Years Later 55

and accomplished Hutton, one of the fathers of
our modern Geology, away back in the last cen-
tury, wrote regarding the earth's structure : *'We
find no vestige of a beginning and no prospect of
an end."

There have been many speculations regarding
the inhabitability of other planets than the earth,
and some writers have gone so far, even recently,
as to suggest a strong probability of our little
world being the only home of life, altho it is true
that our physical researches in our own system
show the probability of most of our planets (with
the exception of the earth and of Mars) being
either too old or too young for the support of life.
There seems, however, to be no inherent reason
why each one of such planets should not reach and
maintain for a while such a condition, all at the
proper time of its career thruout the course of
ages.

Furthermore, how can we conceive of the thou-
sands of millions of suns, or some of them, not
being surrounded with planets, as is our own sun?
We have watched their movements, we have
analyzed their chemical constitution and we find
that they are made of some of the identical ele-

$6 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal?

ments, as hydrogen and oxygen, together with a
number of metals, which are familiar to us upon
this earth. It is, therefore, inconceivable that
they should not behave to a greater or less degree
as does our sun, and should be surrounded, as he .
is, by children of their own. Assuming this, why
should not the solidification, cooling and gradual
life-development take place upon these planet
offspring as well as upon those of our own sun?
If all of this is true, we must consider many other
possible sentient beings, akin more or less to
humanity, who are as likely to have souls as are
we ourselves. An amusing travesty upon such a
speculation as this is found in Mark Twain's little
book: **Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven."
Such yarns are of course valueless from a scientific
or religious point of view, but are rather sug-
gestive regarding the immensity and character of
space.

CHAPTER THREE

SOME CONCLUSIONS

Our assumption of the possibility, or at any
rate the conceivability, of an immortal spirit
emanating from matter and energy by the laws
of physics is of course open to numberless criti-
cisms, and to almost unanswerable objections.
The most obvious of these critical questions might
be: ^^ Where is the spirit world?" If we think
of it as on this earth, it would not be eternal, be-
cause the earth will probably disappear sometime
into fiery gas, as it doubtless once began. If not
here, how could there be a happy eternal home in
the bitter coldness of space with millions of little
meteors and larger satellites constantly flying
around the earth and elsewhere thruout the solar
system? If it is beyond our system we could
hardly escape being boinbarded at some time by
other suns, and planets, and satellites, and me-
teors, belonging to other systems.

The only plausible solution of these difficulties

57

58 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal?

might lie in placing such a future home in some
far-off regions of space where perhaps entirely
new conditions exist, of which we have no idea,
and where we would not be interfered with by
rude bodies of matter whirling at enormous
speeds with alternations of terrific heat and cold
down perhaps nearly to the **absolute zero."
This, measured by the Fahrenheit scale, is about
459 degrees minus.

Leaving these shockingly pessimistic specula-
tions, let us consider the idea that we may find
many other worlds far more Ipvely than this —
perhaps progressively so as time goes on. And,
furthermore, we need fear no final end because as
planets, and systems, and universes are born and
live and die, new ones are preparing for us
thruout the infinity of time and space.

Another objection which may be offered to the
doctrines that we are considering would be:
"Why should not such material-made souls
emanate from animals as well as from man?"
This would not be difficult to conceive did it only
concern such creatures as our lovely, faithful,
honest and humor-loving friends, the dogs — and
perhaps some other loyal and sensible creatures.

Some Conclusions 59

If, however, they are to dwell in the ranks of the
immortals, why, logically, should not all other
creatures, even down to the wicked tigers and the
mean-spirited mosquitoes? We cannot conceive
of a heaven filled with these and the innumerable
other creatures that dwell upon this and other
worlds.

It would seem, therefore, that we must draw
a line somewhere ; and it would probably be based
on the idea of certain critical points in almost all
realms of nature where certain things go so far
and no further; while others, having a slightly
better advantage, go beyond the line and enter
entirely new realms. This principle we see in
nature in many ways, as where a certain tiny
stream may rush forward and grow until it be-
comes a river, while its neighbor, a similar one,
under the same primal conditions, dries up and
disappears — owing of course to some change of
environment.

In regard to such drawing of a definite line of
demarkation between a future life for animals
and men, John Fiske, in his very interesting
IngersoU Lecture, "Life Everlasting," speaks of
the idea held by many people that Nature is accu-

6o Tho Material, Why Not Immortal?

rate in all of her work, without violent leaps. In
questioning this view he speaks of her sometimes
making prodigious leaps, and cites a fact in con-
nection with conic sections which obviously shows
a peculiar jump of this kind. His description
reads as follows: *'Slowly grows the eccentricity
of the ellipse as you shift its position in the cone,
and still the nature of the curve is not essentially
varied, when suddenly, presto! one more little
shift, and the finite ellipse become an infinite
hyperbola, mocking our feeble powers of concep-
tion as it speeds away on its everlasting career."

This critical line, in the case of mankind, may
lie somewhere between the highest apes and the
lowest Bushmen or Hottentots ; but again we have
another of the mysteries that we cannot solve.
Such unsolvability surely should not discourage
us when we consider all the other tremendous
mysteries of Nature which are constantly and
familiarly about us in everyday life.

Without attempting to analyze or correctly
define the words "immortal spirit," there are two
essential attributes which must be present and

Some Conclusions 6i

these are consciousness and memory. Conscious-
ness would doubtless include will, volition and
other functions of a happy being, but without
consciousness there would be nothing; without
memory a soul would have no identity and there-
fore would not know who it was, or rather who
it had been ; neither would it recognize its friends.
Such a doctrine has doubtless often been formu-
lated and believed and especially, to my own
knowledge, by a dear friend of mine, now dead,
who was a profound mathematician and physicist
as well as a loyal churchman. His doctrine
seemed to me a foolish one, as of what possible
use would our spirit life be to us if we did not
know who we were, or who were other people
whom we had known. We would then simply be
new beings; and there certainly would be little
satisfaction in anticipating here such a personnel
for the hereafter.

Taking a more extreme view, might not the
whole ego, after all, consist of nothing else but a
series of memories? If we say we're conscious
of the now, isn't it a memory, for it takes some
appreciable fraction of a second for an event

62 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal?

appealing to some one of the five senses to reach
the brain. Thus it becomes a then. And might
not this bunch of memories, transmitted in some
way thru the ether, to somewhere, form the
nucleus of the renewed and glorified spirit who
woOld have an infinity in which to grow and de-
velop by the accretion of new sensations?

And, if in a future life we thus are so fortunate
as to know ourselves and possess our own identity,
then shall we not also know our loved ones and
have an answer for our longing cry :

"O for the touch of a vanished hand
And the sound of a voice that is still" ?

The doctrine of "Metempsychosis," believed
in more generally in olden times than now, espe-
cially by Plato and his followers, is conceivably
true, but extremely unlikely and unsatisfactory.
It not only includes the immortality of any animal
or plant but embodies the loss of identity, referred
to above as fatal to the value of a future life.
Thus if a soul could not know who it was when
last on earth, nor know whether previously it had
been a turnip, or a sunfish, or an elephant, in

Some Conclusions 63

various stages of its existence, it would have little
satisfaction — unless indeed it could find that some
historian had written its full biography.

In studying these questions we must admit the
fact that many wise and conscientious students of
the Cosmos, good-hearted man-loving men, have
declared absolutely for materialism. Among
them Metchnikofif has more mildly written, *'The
idea of a future life is supported by not a single
fact, while there is much evidence against it."
Aside from a very general belief among good
people in all ages, and certainly by the tenets of
a number of the great religions, that immortality
is a fact, no one has ever offered logical or gen-
uine proof thereof. The existence of such a
general feeling and belief is a strong argument,
but we again must give the verdict "not proven."
We can hardly conceive of a normal-minded, wise
and happy human being not having an intense
longing for immortal life, altho we doubtless all
have met with friends who have expressed them-
selves as entirely indifferent to existence beyond
the life of this kindly and cruel world — a world

64 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal?

full of * 'nothing but trouble and satisfaction, all
the way thru," as a favorite uncle of mine often
described it.

In concluding the guess-work of our previous
pages let us again recur to these three conceivable
possibilties : —

Firstly: that all things living may be mortal
only, and that the Materialists are correct in
their beliefs.

Secondly: that certain portions of matter, or
groupings and motions thereof may in some un-
known and marvelous trans^nutations become im-
mortal spirits, living forever somewhere in ^is
or some other Universe, and

Thirdly, that there exists something entirely
outside and beyond matter and motion which we
call '^spirit," but regarding the constitution and
location of which we can have no conception; and
that from this will be made the souls of all human
beings, and presumably of other similar beings
living in myriads of other planets.

Either the second or the third proposition is
entirely consistent with the beliefs of Christianity
and various other great religions. The proba-
bility of the truth of one or the other of these

Some Conclusions 65

doctrines is strengthened by the very general be-
lief in a future state of existence which has been
so nearly universally held by all nations in all
periods of history.

We lack, however, positive proof of all this
altho, especially in recent years, some perfectly
honest people, among them eminent men of
science, have thought that they received commu-
nications from a spirit world. These phenomena
may perhaps be accounted for by the problemat-
ical and unknown science of Telepathy, so called.
This seems to be something yet undeveloped
about which we may learn much more in the
future, and facilities for the practice of which may
gradually develop in the human mind. As far as
the faint evidence that we have goes there may
be some vibrations from the movements in a
human brain sent forth thru the ether of space
which, somewhat in the manner of wireless teleg-
raphy, start in motion certain particles of some
other brain which happens to be adapted to re-
spond to them, thus sending knowledge from mind
to mind. A so-called "medium," whether hon-
estly or not, may give out what purport to be
sayings or signals of a departed spirit which

66 Tho Material, Why Not Immortal?

embody certain facts that the said medium has
received by telepathy from the person who has the
knowledge that is stated to be verified by the
spirit. Of all this we doubtless may learn more
in the future.

It would, however, be foolish to deny the pos-
sibility of communicating spirits existing around
us here — as now believed by some scientists of
the highest reputation. And may not this idea
also be included in our galaxy of speculations?

To my mind the strongest evidence for im-
mortality as in the second or third of the above
propositions lies in the existence of Evil, and the
logical supposition that a just and merciful
Creator will not make it permanent. We are sur-
rounded by evil of every sort and we can but
realize constantly the terrible cruelty of the world,
not only of man and all other living creatures in
constantly destroying and devouring each other,
but in the absolute cruelty of Nature herself when
overpowering us. Witness the cold of the arctics,
the burning heat of the tropics, the overwhelming
power of winds and tidal-waves and of the light-
ning. Consider also the hundreds of cruel dis-
eases, the births into poverty, incompetency and

Some Conclusions 67

crime, together with all the other ills that we see
about us.

When we contemplate the wonderful ingenuity
displayed in Nature with her^many glorious pro-
ductions in plant and animal life, and the perfect
governing of the tremendous forces in the
heavens with millions of huge suns and planets
whirling in their orbits in obedience to some great
and wonderful law, we can but believe that some
recompense will be made in the end for all of the
suffering of living creatures thruout the Universe.

Of God's goodness and human gratitude there-
for, we find enormous tribute in the literature of
the world/ What, for instance, can be more
beautiful than the lines of Whittier's hymn: "The
Eternal Goodness,'^ reading:

And so beside the Silent Sea

I wait the muffled oar

No harm from Him can come to me

On ocean or on shore.

I know not where His islands lift
Their f ronded palms in air ;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.

And listen to Addison, in his "Cato" : —

68 Tho Material, Why Not Immortalf

It must be so, — Plato, thou reasonest well I

Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,

This longing after immortality?

Or whence this secret dread and inward horror

Or falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul

Back on herself, and startles at destruction?

'Tis the divinity that stirs within us;

'Tis Heaven itself that point out an hereafter.

And intimates eternity to man.

Eternity 1 thou pleasing, dreadful thought I

The soul, secured in her existence, smiles

At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.

The stars shall fade away, the sun himself

Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years ;

But thou shall flourish in immortal youth,

Unhurt amidst the war of elements,

The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.

A very, very strong point for immortality
would seem to be its avoidance of the terrible
unfairness of the enormous mass of suffering,
occurring sometimes entirely thruout whole lives,
imless some recompense shall come. This idea
has been vividly portrayed, with the remedy for
the unfairness, in Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wake-
field," where he makes dear old Doctor Primrose
philosophize as follows:

"Heaven gives to both rich and poor the same
happiness hereafter, and equal hopes to aspire

Some Conclusions 69

after it; but if the rich have the advantage of
enjoying pleasure here, the poor have the endless
satisfaction of knowing what it once was to be
miserable, when crowned with endless felicity
hereafter; and even tho this should be called a
small advantage, yet being an eternal one, it must
make up by duration what the temporal happiness
of the great may have exceeded in intenseness."

May we not hope for a realization of this in-
genious proposition — and happy will we all be if
we can realize the power of one of the grandest
phrases of Holy Writ, set forth by Abraham:
"Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"